Saudi Arabia reportedly released a video of the kingdom’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (known as MBS) Thursday chairing a meeting for the Council of Economic Affairs and Development in Jeddah on Tuesday to quash rumors, broadcast through Iranian state media, that he was injured or dead as a result of a shooting outside the royal palace on April 21.

Russia says that it acquiesced to a request from President Obama to help secure the release of Americans held in Syria, culminating in the freedom on Friday of an American freelance photographer abducted after he traveled to Syria in 2012.

TEL AVIV – An American scholar and radio personality said that the “Zionist-controlled media” was behind Islamophobia, according to an interview released by Iranian state news agency PressTV on Tuesday. Dr. Kevin Barrett, a former professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the wave of terror attacks all over the world was not carried out by Islamists, rather they were perpetrated as “false-flag” operations by the American and Israeli armies.

Iranian regime officials have pledged to respond to any coming U.S. sanctions by “forcefully” continuing to boost “its missile capabilities,” announced defense minister Brig Gen Hossein Dehqan on Friday. The Obama White House was said to be preparing financial sanctions

The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Marzieh Afkham, responded with fury in reaction to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Tuesday speech to a joint session of the United States Congress.

Iranian state-media outlet Press TV has come to the defense of Salam Al-Marayati, the President of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), who attended this week’s White House Countering Violent Extremism Summit and has a past rife with extremist remarks.